


gaudete/laetere

by one_more_offbeat_anthem



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Churches & Cathedrals, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Introspection, POV Dean Winchester, Season/Series 05
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-18
Updated: 2020-12-18
Packaged: 2021-03-10 23:21:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,025
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28145277
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/one_more_offbeat_anthem/pseuds/one_more_offbeat_anthem
Summary: or, joy in the time of penitence and mourning.There's an apocalypse on, and Dean finds himself in a church, unmoored. There's not much to think about except everything.
Relationships: Castiel & Dean Winchester, Castiel/Dean Winchester
Comments: 3
Kudos: 18





	gaudete/laetere

**Author's Note:**

> Gaudete Sunday is the name for the third Sunday of Advent (the time of penitence and preparation before Christmas) and Laetare Sunday is the name for the fourth Sunday of Lent (the time of penitence and preparation before Easter). On both Sundays, it is traditional to light a rose-colored candle. Gaudete means “joy” and laetare means “rejoicing.”
> 
> Additionally, the verse for the nineteenth of December from the hymn “O Come, O Come Emmanuel (Veni, Veni Emmanuel)” is used here.
> 
> Set in some amorphous time in season 5.

_O come thou Branch of Jesse’s tree, free them from Satan’s tyranny that trust thy mighty power to save, and give them victory over the grave. Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel!_

Dean Winchester is not a religious man.

He can count on one hand the times he’s gone to church. Sure, he uses the rituals--holy water. Latin exorcisms. Rosaries and demons and invocations. But he’s committed some sins no father, heavenly or otherwise, could forgive. He’s had blood on his hands, caked under his fingernails, trapped in the lines of his palms no matter how much he scrubs them, since he was a kid. He learned how to fire a gun before he knew how to ride a bike. He couldn’t cry over skinned knees so now he _kills, kills, kills--_ maybe he can give one kid their childhood back, the one he never had. 

There’s an angel on his shoulder and a lease on his life and he’s only ever prayed as a joke, because what else do you do when the devil himself has a choke-hold on your happy ending?

Dean’s angel tells him that he’s got doubts, and if an Angel of The Lord can’t believe in miracles, then neither can Dean. 

But now he’s in a church, with candles burning in a wreath and a choir singing about salvation and garlands around the stained glass windows--the colorful glass scenes depict flowers, martyrs, Jesus, and his little lambs. 

_Shepherd of the Lord, my ass,_ Dean thinks, and then he feels guilty for insulting something he doesn’t believe in, and guilt isn’t an emotion he wears well, because it’s a pulsing constant in his veins. The guilt of others becomes his own--the guilt of the father runs wild, threatens to drown him.

He remembers a night, their “last night on earth,” they called it. Dean’s angel made him laugh, harder than he had in years, maybe the most he’d ever laughed in his whole godforsaken life. His angel’s gonna gutter out like a candle without oxygen one day if he spends too much time with Dean, and Dean knows it. He sucks the life-force from all that is holy and divine, and here he is, in the sanctuary of the Lord, and he cannot bring himself to pray. 

_Start over,_ the choir director says, _don’t go too sharp on that E flat this time,_ and then the choir’s singing again. 

_O come thou Branch of Jesse’s tree, free them from Satan’s tyranny that trust thy mighty power to save, and give them victory over the grave. Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel!_

Dean knows the truth. Satan, Lucifer, the devil, whatever you want to call him, he’s got it out for the world. Dean’s one purpose is to duck for cover and burn his palms and let himself get beaten as he tries to avert the apocalypse. 

There is no rejoicing.

There are only small wins--his angel understands a joke he makes, they get a six-pack, his brother doesn’t badger him about not eating vegetables. Dean doesn’t get it. His life has an expiration date. Why prolong the inevitable? 

Dean kneels, and it feels like dirty truckstop floors and bitter salt in his mouth and _guilt pain shame_ pile up and he _knows_ he could never confess to this. No holy man would understand being willing to spill all that you have for those you love, even when they will leave you, even when they _do_ leave you. 

When you have nothing, you hold on tight to all you have, even if all you have is other people. Other people are fallible and can lie to you and cheat and steal and break your heart and be gone the next morning, just to ensure that you learn that hands grappling at the sheets isn’t _love_ , it’s searching for something you’ll never find. 

Maybe he and Jesus aren’t all that different--given a purpose and forgotten by their fathers. Assaulted, beaten, broken, for not being what they were supposed to be, whatever that was. Both flying the flag of hope, of carrying on, because that’s all that was left. Only Jesus was known to be soft, tender, nurturing, and Dean is none of that. He is calloused palms and split lips and beating the dents out of his car with a mallet--

He remembers, in flashes, raising his brother, playing both mother and father. He does it now, too, doesn’t he? The horrors they’ve seen and Dean keeps trying to protect him, shield him from the worst of it. 

Well, he can’t anymore. It’s all too burnt and broken. It’s bitterly cold outside, and a crappy motel room with re-runs of _Remington Steele_ and a lumpy mattress are all that wait for him. 

_No, no, no,_ the choir director says again, _you’re doing it all wrong. You need to rejoice more! Sound more joyful!_

_O come thou Branch of Jesse’s tree, free them from Satan’s tyranny that trust thy mighty power to save, and give them victory over the grave. Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel!_

“There you are,” a voice says, and it’s not the voice of the choir director or the choir, echoing through Dean like he’s underwater. It’s the voice that saved him and tried to kill him and beat him but then forgave him. There’s only one voice like that, that can say so much by saying so little. Dean turns on the hard pew and there’s his angel, legions of power contained in one man. His angel’s not human--by all accounts, he shouldn’t be perfect. He doesn’t live in a body that Dean is supposed to favor. He doesn’t understand Dean’s pop culture references. He can’t truly enjoy the merits of a good beer. He has no concept of personal space, he watches Dean sleep, and he invades Dean’s thoughts all too much. 

But he’s the holiest thing Dean’s ever seen, his angel, and maybe there _is_ something to rejoice about, something better up ahead, maybe there is victory over the grave. 

“Heya, Cas.” 

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading! I'm not sure where this came from, the brain just said DO IT so I did. 
> 
> if you liked this, i post more stuff here sometimes and also on [my tumblr](https://one-more-offbeat-anthem.tumblr.com) :)


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